


But If I Show Up At Ten Past Six

by prouvairablehulk



Series: FlashWave Week 2K17 [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 15:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9613301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouvairablehulk/pseuds/prouvairablehulk
Summary: Visiting hours are nine to five, but if I show up at ten past six, well, I already know that you’ll find some way to sneak me in and oh.(FlashWave Week Day Two: Soulmate AU)





	

The hospital was eerie-quiet at 2 am when Mick Rory slipped in the service entrance. Mick had assumed that all hospitals were busy all the time, but then again Mick’s hospital experience was limited to the ER, which was always loud and busy. 

This was an inpatient ward, and Mick was looking for someone in particular. 

83… 84… 85… 86…

Room 87. Bartholomew Allen. Struck by lightening in the CCPD Crime Lab in the downtown precinct on the night the STAR Labs particle accelerator exploded. Also, if the Lichtenberg Figures on Mick’s right arm and torso were anything to go by, Mick’s soulmate. The door to the room is unlocked, and Mick slips inside to get a good look at his soulmate. Barry Allen, it seems, is a tiny little thing – fine-boned, lanky, twinkish, dark hair, freckles enough for a small country or a constellation map. 

Mick wonders how Barry will take it, when he wakes up. When this valiant, striving little CSI finds out the burns on his skin come from a criminal arsonist, not a fireman, or a chef, or an accident-prone civilian with a love for candles, or whatever his undoubtedly amazing mind had dreamt up. Mick creeps a little closer to the still form on the bed, and lines up their right arms, just to be sure. 

They match. Like there was any chance they wouldn’t. Something settles deep into Mick’s bones, just like it had when his and Lenny’s bruises lined up, when he found that the fates themselves had marked the Snarts as his whanau. 

“Hello, doll.” Mick murmurs, and laces their fingers together. 

***

“Those are new.” says Iris, tilting her head towards the beautiful sunrise-orange roses in the vase by Barry’s bed. Andrew, the caustic but nonetheless kind nurse who was in charge of Barry’s primary care, turned to look at her, plainly confused. 

“They were here this morning. I thought they were from you?” 

Iris shakes her head. 

“Well, somebody’s looking out for our boy.” says Andrew, grinning. Iris makes a non-committal noise, and wonders. 

Barry’s been asleep for six weeks. 

 

***

“These are from Barry’s desk at the precinct.” says Joe, with a warm smile, brushing his thumb over the worn wooden frame that housed a picture of the three of them. “Did you bring them over?”

“No.” says Iris. “I thought you did.” It’s been exactly a week since the orange roses. 

They look at each other, and then head for the nurse’s station. Andrew’s all too happy to pull up the security footage, which – has been doctored, put on a loop between 1:45 am and 3:15 am. Joe swears, and Andrew mutters something unflattering under his breath. 

“Will the hospital let me stay overnight to figure out what’s going on?” Joe asks. 

Andrew nods. 

***

The door opens at 2:03 am, and a big burly man comes in, carefully closing the door behind him. He’s got a brown paper bag in one hand, and a canvas jacket tossed over one shoulder. 

“Hi, doll.” he murmurs, crossing the room to Barry’s bedside. “How have you been this week? I brought you some new flowers – red, this time. Not that I’ll ever force you into anything romantic if you don’t want it – God, Lenny and Lise would never forgive me if I did that. I just thought you’d like them.” 

The man sinks into the chair by Barry’s bed, carefully lifts Barry’s right hand so he can lace their fingers together. The cuff of the man’s shirt lifts a little, and Joe can see the scars on it.

Scars that match Barry’s perfectly. 

He sits in silence for who knows how long, letting the man ramble quietly to his son’s sleeping body, talking about everything and nothing all at once. The man – Barry’s soulmate – finally shifts in his chair, and the half-light finally illuminates his face. 

Joe’s out of his seat in the shadows in a second, gun up and safety off. 

“Hello, Detective West.” says Mick Rory. Convicted arsonist and thief, Mick Rory. Who is Barry’s soulmate. Fuck damn, all the burns suddenly make sense. “I was rather hoping you’d be here.”

“Get the fuck away from my kid.” hisses Joe. Rory doesn’t move. 

“We need to talk about Barry. Also possibly his sister – one of the photos on his desk, she had a cast on her leg, and the caption on the back said she broke it so bad that the bone poked through? Is Barry exaggerating, or did that happen? Because if it did, I need to know if she has a scar on her right front shoulder, about two, three inches long.” 

“How the hell –“ Joe starts. 

“Oh, good, she is Lisey’s other half. That’s going to make this so much easier.” 

“Make what easier?” 

Their standoff is interrupted by Rory’s phone alarm going off. 

“That’s my cue.” he says. “Meet me at Saints and Sinners tomorrow at 7:30. Bring Iris.” 

And then he’s gone. 

***

It’s 11:30, and Joe is currently getting drunk with the people he is resigned to calling his new family. Mick, as it turns out, is offering to pay part of Barry’s medical bills and also to buy Joe a drink. Several drinks. Also, he was right. Lisa Snart (what the actual fuck) is Iris’ soulmate. And both Snart siblings are bruise-matched to Mick. He’s really never going to get rid of them. So instead, here he is. Drunk off his ass in a dive bar with three criminals and his daughter, trying to play darts despite the fact he and Len both are seeing three boards instead of one. 

Mick laughs, delighted and warm, and Lenny’s leaning in close to whisper-yell to Joe that his soulmate left him with top-surgery scars, and Lenny’s going to scour the city to find him, because he needs to be told that someone will love him no matter what. Joe’s getting the impression that none of the three of them have ever got that kind of unconditional love before. Mick throws a bullseye, and slams his glass on the table a few times, before declaring that he’s buying another round. 

The night gets a little hazy after that. 

Joe wakes up the next morning with a headache like a motherfucker in his own bed, with a bottle of advil and a glass of water by the bed. When he makes it downstairs, Mick is making breakfast – eggs and bacon and French toast and waffles – while Lenny makes coffee, and Iris and Lisa are pressed together at the table in oversize tshirts, squabbling over what music they should be playing. It feels like home. It feels like family. Joe makes sure to call Lenny ‘son’ as much as possible in the next conversations, to clearly state that Lisa and he are welcome at any time, and that he’s not going to pull a gun on Mick any time soon. There’s a fact niggling at the back of his head, something he remembers reading in Snart’s file, about his father the policeman and uninvestigated domestic violence calls. 

Who knows. Maybe having a good cop in the family might make a difference. 

Mick is smiling when the three of them leave, and Joe calls his name. 

“Come for normal visiting hours, next time.” he says, when Mick turns around. 

“3:30 on Tuesday afternoon?” Mick asks. “Thanks, but not all of Central’s finest are as open minded as you.” 

Joe winces a little, but has to agree. 

“I’m sure you’ll find some way to sneak me in that door, though, Detective.” 

Something in that phrasing sounds familiar. 

“So we’ll see you at ten past six, then?” calls Iris, from the stoop. 

Lenny starts cackling, and Mick bodily throws him over his shoulder has they leave. 

It’s not until three hours later, when Fred Chyre asks him why he’s humming Alanis Morrissette, that he realizes why.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a second chapter to this, maybe a few more - probably tomorrow, along with tomorrow's prompt fic.


End file.
